Category Archives: food

Back to where we were a year ago

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And it’s 2020 all over again.

We’re back to enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) a.k.a strict lockdown where you need quarantine passes or IDs if you are an essential worker i.e. healthcare, food service, and logistics.

And just like last year, this stupid and incompetent government still doesn’t have contingency plans!!! The presidential spokesperson said wait for the details on Monday… WTF!!! why can’t they treat this with urgency?! People need to go to work on Monday and there are no clear rules on transportation, financial support for the most vulnerable…

But unlike last year, we are now logging 10,000 new COVID-19 cases the other day. And these new variants are overwhelming us as the government is bungling our vaccine procurement.

I knew I would be so distressed so good thing I was able to make it to the Fabric Warehouse along C5 before everything shuts down. I bought 18 yards of fabric to make into curtains. By hand. To destress. To relieve me of my anxiety.

I just sewed one panel tonight and finished it at 2 am today. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I have seven panels to finish until Easter Sunday so I guess I will be pretty occupied until April 4.

Since weekdays bleed into weekends and the distinction is getting blurred once more, I am putting more effort in cooking on weekends, just to make it distinguishable from workdays. So every weekend, I barbecue meat on skewers or chunks of chicken in sauce, grill stake, or do Korean barbecue… Just like what we did when J was still here.

Just because he’s no longer here doesn’t mean we can’t have good food regularly. I am getting better at starting the fire and have ember as soon as possible.

On a related note, the girls are now learning to eat spicy food bit by bit. Last week I ordered the spicy Korean fried chicken from Jjangkae along Kalayaan Ave just the other day. Yes, they struggled but at least it’s a vast improvement from before when they simply had refused anything with a hint of spice.

Spicy Korean fried chicken with side dishes. Photo by CallMeCreation.com.

Although this is not really spicy but at least they’re already eating yellow curry (either the Otogi brand or McCormick). It will take a long time before I would be able to serve Thai green curry or red curry. I still have all those Thai and Malaysian curry mixes (rendang!) here stuck in my shelf. Because no one eats them here except me and J.

Ah one of these days I’m going to cook them and send to friends who are stuck in condos with no proper home-cooked meals.

To still the violent seas

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Oyakudon. Photo by Callmecreation.com

My insides are like the roiling seas during a violent storm. I needed to calm it before I explode.

To do that, I needed to revisit what I used to do to reach a zen-like state. So I returned to cooking.

I had abandoned it temporarily because cooking had hurt. I used to do that a lot for him, testing new recipes, learning dishes from his native country. I quit all that. Because I believed that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and love can be felt in the food that has been cooked with it. I used to accompany him while he ate, because that’s how you serve food with love, especially after a long hard day at work. Talk about how the day went, talk about politics, about ideas, about the future.

I cooked oyakudon again yesterday as I suddenly craved for something Japanese. Doing so gave me some kind of peace and purpose at the same time. To nourish my body and soul and that of my children.

To inspire me with beauty and stillness of home cooking and homemaking, I had been watching Girl in Calico and The Cottage Fairy on Youtube daily.

There is beauty somewhere even in the darkest night.

Lockdown kusinera

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Prepping the lechon kawali for tomorrow

It has been 60 days since we’ve been on a lockdown. I haven’t ventured beyond Araneta Cubao in the south and Batasan in the north for two months. The first few weeks were hard but we learned to cope.

To help me stay sane, I’ve been cooking a variety of dishes because sawa na ko sa usual luto ko. Plus I need to keep my household healthy by cooking vegetable dishes.

I tried avoiding meat but my children and kasambahay are carnivores so it was difficult to go hardcore.

Anyway, I am restarting this blog by posting this lechon kawali prep. You have to boil the pork for 30 mins with star anise, salt, and peppercorn. Let it cool for a bit. Then freeze. I am thinking of what to do with the broth. 🤔 Maybe some soup with mishua and pechay?

Will let you know how my battle with oil splatters while deep-frying these babies goes.

UPDATE: The next day I thawed the pork, seasoned it with salt and fried it.

Chopped lechon kawali. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com

But wait, before that, I cut the fat and skin to make chicharon (or pupor as we called it in Batangas). I fried them then let them cool for a bit by putting them in the freezer. After I finished frying the first batch of the lechon kawali, I took out the cooled fat/skin and deep fried them again. Le voilá!

Chicharon á la lechon kawali a.k.a. pupor in Batangas. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com

Warning: This is highly addictive but bad for the health.

Artsy fartsy place to stay in Jakarta that will not break the bank

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This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

I was supposed to book something else in Jakarta, I think it was near Grand Indonesia.

But then my boss recommended this and I saw it was a lot cheaper, at around PHP 2,370 a night. There was no question about it so I booked it. It was in front of Sarinah, Jakarta’s first department store, ergo, I will not run out of food options.

This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

Durian Writer told me to take a selfie infront of it because it was the scene of the Jakarta bombings a few years back.

Anyway, Artotel in Thamrin is comfortable enough, the room was much bigger than anything else I book in Singapore, and has decent Internet connection (around 20+ Mbps). It poses as an art gallery/hotel and it has murals done by up and coming local artists.

Looks like it’s tilting but it’s actually level. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

The food though is… Any breakfast buffet without bacon in my book is a fail. That’s it. Since everything in Jakarta is halal, I couldn’t expect to have babi/baboy which is why my diet the past three days consisted of ayam (chicken) and veggies.

This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

The food I had the past three days lacked the umami flavor that I favor so much. Yes, Indonesian food is spicy because they love putting so much crushed chili but I found myself always reaching for the soy sauce and black pepper.

Nasi padang. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

The style of nasi padang is to serve everything on the table. But of course my colleagues and I did not eat everything. You only get charged for the ones you pick/touch. So I think they make money off people who have bigger eyes than their stomachs as they would be dipping into every dish on the table “just to try”. They will end up paying for everything.

I just ate beef rendang, jackfruit curry (like ginataang langka), and a vegetable dish that is a bunch of leaves that was blanched and it tasted like lagundi leaves. I liked the rendang.

The other day we ate near Sarinah and I ordered gado-gado (because this dish has been advertised to me by Durian Writer so many times) and satay, just to compare the Singaporean one. My colleague boasted that Indonesian satay is the best (of course you should love thy own) but unfortunately I liked the Singaporean version grilled near Lau Pasat every night. The Indonesian satay is covered in so much yellow sauce that didn’t help in flavoring the meat itself (which is, of course, ayam) I liked the gado-gado, which is a dish composed of kropek, fried tofu, veggies, sambal and some stuff I no longer remember.

This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

I had this blueberry vanilla milkshake when we were in Markette in Grand Indonesia for a meeting.

All in all, my travel food is not a success. I may have better luck the next time around.

Chinese and Indian food tripping in Singapore

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Pork, chicken, and duck. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

Food tripping in Singapore is not complete without Chinese and Indian food.

@kongapored brought me to Mui Kee Congee along Scotts Road before I flew back to Manila later that day. She said she was curious about how the Cantonese-style congee tasted like in Singapore (she is Hong Kong Chinese but has lived in Singapore for about four years now). Singaporean congee, she said, is nothing but watery rice gruel so it was unappealing to her. To me as well since I am used to the strong flavors that the best lugaw/arroz caldo house serve us here in Manila.

Mui Kee Congee along Scotts Road. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

This was ok, as far as Chinese congee is concerned. It has a slight ginger taste (maybe a sliver of ginger there?) and the pork meatballs were a good foil to the blandness of the rice soup. I had to give the congee a good dollop of soy sauce to kick my taste buds.

Mui Kee Congee along Scotts Road. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

I forget what’s the name of this dish but @kongapored said this should not be dry and sticky like this one served to us. It’s supposed to be saucy and not served like this with the sauce separate from the dish.

My travails for the memorable Chinese food has been fruitless since the ones I had in some Chinese restaurant (supposedly earning one Michelin star) in Chinatown are pedestrian but expensive.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkQH-c_jTEA/?igshid=nqjp9xm3po9g

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkQH4Z_DZW4/?igshid=11kvs90a2jwxc

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkQH1p2jNq4/?igshid=1uw45w5ctt0mq

Fish head curry is not really Indian but it is a Kerala-style x Chinese fusion cuisine that is signature Singaporean. I am including this to show the crossbreeding of cuisines that reflect Singapore: a crossroads of two civilizations.

Ocean Curry Fish Head along Telok Ayer. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

After having this fish head curry, I have more appreciation of fish heads, which I dismiss here in the Philippines because they do not yield me anything at all. I could tell that the fish in this dish was fresh (no lansa) and the curry was spicy enough to heighten my senses as the spicyness level of this dish is not normally found in the Philippines. I even find Bicol express and pinangat mild compared to this one.

For more “authentic” Indian food (read: vegetarian) head to Little India or somewhere near that enclave. I cannot remember where this was because I just walked for four hours in MacRitchie Reservoir prior to this to clear my head (but ended up more confused that day). This was a purely vegetarian dish that did little to satisfy my hunger. And it was spicy to boot. I just neutralized it with sweet lassi, which I felt like was the only sugar source for me that evening.

This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

After this dinner, I drowned myself with a lot of alcohol. Jumped from one bar along Club Street to another one somewhere in Tanjong Pagar.

Satay feast along Boon Tat cor Robinson Road, Singapore

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Satay feast outside Lau Pasat. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

Having a taste of satay grilled along Boon Tat Road between Lau Pasat and Sofitel five years ago has changed the way I look at that quintessential Singaporean/Malaysian street food. It’s skewered meat of every kind: chicken, beef, pork, mutton, rabbit, lamb, and even prawns. It can be eaten as is, or for extra oomph, you can dip it in peanut sauce.

The meat (of whatever kind) is tender and savory and not sickly sweet like how some of our Pinoy barbeque tend to be. Hindi sya nakakaumay. The meat size is cut just right so it’s not much of struggle when you bite it off the skewer.

Every night (around 7 pm-ish) they close off a section of Boon Tat so satay vendors can roll out the tables and chairs for al fresco diners.

There are senior citizens who go around selling wet wipes or tissue for SGD 1 a pop. If you’re feeling charitable, go ahead buy some because you will need that after stuffing your face. Otherwise, save your 40 pesos (roughly SGD 1) and use your own handkerchief to wipe the peanut sauce off your mouth.

I never fail to have one dinner there with coworkers or other Singapore-based friends like @barbaruuu there.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUeWZtygJAu/?igshid=1tcl7g63dziso

Satay is best paired with beer.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUZjdNDAiFr/?igshid=k6c0bahlft8w

And more beer

Beer and satay outside Lau Pasat. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

After that eye-popping moment five years ago when I discovered how the real satay tasted like, I can confidently declare that the ones served by Shangri-la Makati and Shangri-la EDSA are complete garbage.